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• Unusual Reading At Chatanooga Nuclear Plant

• Milk Contamination At EPA Maximum

• Highest Levels Yet In Boise Rainwater

Radiation from Japan has been detected in drinking water in 13 more American cities, and cesium-137 has been found in American milk—in Montpelier, Vermont—for the first time since the Japan nuclear disaster began, according to data released by the Environmental Protection Agency late Friday.

Milk samples from Phoenix and Los Angeles contained iodine-131 at levels roughly equal to the maximum contaminant level permitted by EPA in drinking water, the data shows. The Phoenix sample contained 3.2 picoCuries per liter of iodine-131. The Los Angeles sample contained 2.9. The EPA maximum contaminant level is 3.0, but this is a conservative standard designed to minimize exposure over a lifetime, so EPA does not consider these levels to pose a health threat. The FDA, not the EPA, regulates milk.

[UPDATE: The FDA's Derived Intervention Level for iodine-131 in milk is much higher: 4700 picoCuries per liter. Read why.]

The cesium-137 found in milk in Vermont is the first cesium detected in milk since the Fukushima-Daichi nuclear accident occurred last month. The sample contained 1.9 picoCuries per liter of cesium-137. (EPA’s maximum contanimant level for Cesium-137 is 200 pCi/L).

Radioactive isotopes accumulate in milk after they spread through the atmosphere, fall to earth in rain or dust, and settle on vegetation, where they are ingested by grazing cattle. Iodine-131 is known to accumulate in the thyroid gland, where it can cause cancer and other thyroid diseases. Cesium-137 accumulates in the body’s soft tissues, where it increases risk of cancer, according to EPA.

Airborne contamination continues to cross the western states, the new data shows, and Boise has seen the highest concentrations of radioactive isotopes in rain so far.

A rainwater sample collected in Boise on March 27 contained 390 picocures per liter of iodine-131, plus 41 of cesium-134 and 36 of cesium-137. EPA released this result for the first time yesterday. Typically several days pass between sample collection and data release because of the time required to collect, transport and analyze the samples.

In most of the data released Friday the levels of contaminants detected are far below the standards observed by EPA and other U.S. agencies.

But the EPA drinking-water data includes one outlier—an unusually, but not dangerously, high reading in a drinking water sample from Chatanooga, Tennessee.

The sample was collected at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah nuclear plant. A Tennessee official told the Chatanooga Times last week that radiation from Japan had been detected at Sequoyah but is “1,000 to 10,000 times below any levels of concern.” The 1.6 picocures per liter reported by the EPA on Friday is slightly more than half the maximum contaminant level permitted in drinking water, but more uniquely, it is many times higher than all the other drinking water samples collected in the U.S.

The EPA released this new data through a new interactive open-data system it quietly launched on the EPA website Wednesday. The new interface is to be regularly updated, replacing EPA’s periodic news releases and pdf data charts. Here are more details of the data released Friday:

Drinking Water

Radioactive Iodine-131 was found in drinking water samples from 13 cities. Those cities are listed below, with the amount of Iodine-131 in picocuries per liter. The EPA’s maximum contaminant level for Iodine-131 in drinking water is 3 picocuries per liter.

Oak Ridge, TN collected 3/28: 0.63

Oak Ridge, TN collected at three sites 3/29: 0.28, 0.20, 0.18

Chatanooga, TN collected 3/28: 1.6

Helena, MT collected 3/28: 0.18

Columbia, PA collected 3/29: 0.20

Cincinatti, OH collected 3/28: 0.13

Pittsburgh, PA collected 3/28: 0.36

East Liverpool, OH collected 3/30: 0.42

Painesville, OH collected 3/29: 0.43

Denver, CO collected 3/30: 0.17

Detroit, MI collected 3/31: 0.28

Trenton, NJ collected 3/31: 0.38

Waretown, NJ collected 3/31: 0.38

Muscle Shoals, AL collected 3/31: 0.16

Precipitation

In the data released Friday, iodine-131 was found in rainwater samples from the following locations:

Salt Lake City, UT collected 3/17: 8.1

Boston, MA collected 3/22: 92

Montgomery, Alabama collected 3/30: 3.7

Boise, ID collected 3/27: 390

As reported above, the Boise sample also contained 42 pC/m3 of Cesium-134, and 36 of Cesium-137.

Air

In the most recent data, iodine-131 was found in air filters in the following locations. In the case of air samples, the radiation is measured in picoCuries per cubic meter.

Montgomery, AL collected 3/31: 0.055

Nome AK collected 3/30: 0.17

Nome AK collected 3/29: 0.36

Nome AK collected 3/27: 0.36

Nome AK collected 3/26: 0.46

Nome AK collected 3/25: 0.26

Juneau AKcollected 3/26: 0.43

Juneau AK collected 3/27: 0.38

Juneau AK collected 3/30: 0.28

Dutch Harbor AK collected 3/30: 0.14

Dutch Harbor AK collected 3/29: 0.11

Dutch Harbor AK colleccted 3/26: 0.21

Boise, ID collected 3/27: 0.22

Boise, ID collected 3/29: 0.27

Boise, ID collected 3/28: 0.32

Las Vegas NV collected 3/28: 0.30

Las Vegas, NV collected 3/30:: 0.088

Las Vegas, NV collected 3/29: 0.044

No other types of isotopes were found in the most recent data from air samples, even though EPA is also on the lookout for barium-140, cobalt-60, cesium-134, cesium-136, cesium-137, iodine-132, iodine-133, tellurium-129, and tellurium-132.

In older samples, isotopes of cesium and tellurium were found in Boise; Las Vegas; Nome and Dutch Harbor; Honolulu, Kauai and Oahu, Hawaii; Anaheim, Riverside, San Francisco, and San Bernardino, California; Jacksonville and Orlando, Florida; Salt Lake City, Utah; Guam, and Saipan on the Marina Islands.

Some of these locations had not been previously reported in EPA news releases.

The EPA has said it will continue to monitor radiation levels in air, precipitation, drinking water, and milk even if the budget impasse shuts down the government next week.

There is more discussion of maximum contaminant levels and health concerns in the related links below and their associated comments:

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There is no safe level of these types of radiation. You can find experts saying this over and over on the internet. They just don’t want anyone to panic as there is no solution to this problem and BTW, the stupid reactor is getting worse, not better. Also, the radiation doesn’t just fade away in your body. They accumulate and you had to do aggressive detoxification to get rid of them.

Thank you for your comment, Anne. Physicians for Social Responsibility agrees with you:

There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period,” said Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water.”

But leading scientists and health experts issued a joint statement last month from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the American Thyroid Association, The Endocrine Society, and the Society of Nuclear Medicine. It says:

With radiation accidents, the greatest risk is to populations close to the radiation source. While some radiation may be detected in the United States and its territories in the Pacific as a result of this accident, current estimates indicate that radiation amounts will be little above baseline atmospheric levels and will not be harmful to the thyroid gland or general health.”

Most toxicologists and epidemiologists will agree that for the majority of carcinogens, there is no “safe” level. Each and every exposure increases the likelihood of producing damage to DNA which can lead to the initiation of cancer.

With that said, it is important to note that there are naturally occurring sources of radioactive materials which are ubiquitous. These materials are of course a health risk but there is nothing anyone can do about them. So the question is not whether radioactive materials are released from the Japanese reactor or if those materials reach the US, the question is will they raise the exposure of Americans above the natural background levels.

Jct: And our Can adian government to the north says they see no danger just to the north. Of course, it helps that they’ve turned off their fallout detectors and no longer test the milk! Har har har. They’re lawying to us.

Cesium 137 has a half life of 30 years and is ubiquitous in our environment due to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. Each year, the Cesium 137 is less and less radioactive, but if Vermont just found Ce137 for the “first time” in milk, that’s because that was the first time milk was tested in Vermont.

Please be responsible journalists and find a scientist who understands this topic. If they found shorter lived radio nuclides in combination with Ce137, that would prove a Fukushima connection. Without that evidence, this is junk science.

Thank you for your comment, artstone. This isn’t the first time ever that EPA has found cesium-137 in Vermont or in milk. It is, as the story says above, “the first cesium detected in milk since the Fukushima-Daichi nuclear accident occurred last month.”

You’re quite correct to point out that the source is assumed, not documented. I think that’s what’s so provocative about the unusually high I-131 reading at the Sequoyah nuclear plant. A TN state health official claimed it was from Japan, but it was much higher than all other US drinking water readings… until Philadelphia’s data arrived Saturday.

Jeff- Thanks for the informative article. I have a question, though, about the EPA testing. Is this something that is done normally,specifically for radiation? And,if so, what are the readings pre-Japan for Little Rock? I ask this, because as an Arkansas Resident, I aware that Milk from Little Rock, is coming from a Dairy area very close to our own Nuclear Plant. What I’m getting at,as a question is-Are, the readings so high in Little Rock, just based on a jump from the Japanese incident ? Or, are they high readings, just boosted even higher, in conjunction with the time of the Japan incident? Just wondering if you were aware of any data, or info on that sort of comparison. Again Thanks for the Article.

Thank you for your comment and question, Tim. EPA routinely tests air, rainwater, drinking water, and milk for radioactive isotopes. Ordinarily, those isotopes are non-detectable. Typically, they begin to appear after nuclear accidents and nuclear weapons tests. EPA recently increased the frequency of testing because of the Fukushima disaster.

As artstone points out above, isotopes with longer half-lives, such as plutonium and cesium-137, are dispersed throughout the world as a result of nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s and present in the environment in tiny amounts. It is my understanding, however, that those materials rarely show up in these tests.

To get a sense of relative radioactivity in the Arkansas environment before and after the Japan accident, have a look at these graphs of gross beta and gamma radiation:

http://www.epa.gov/japan2011/rert/radnet-littlerock-bg.html

Those graphs just give you a sense of two types of radioactivity, from all sources, without specific identification of isotopes. Iodine-131 emits a small amount of gamma radiation and a large of beta.

I have a nutritional chart for radiation exposure – I don’t know how to get a copy to you – my email is SharryOnAir#gmail.com. just change the symbol, I’m posted it this way to prevent trawlers from grabbing my info

Health standards will not change if you listen to the regulators (Nuclear Regulatory Comission) and the plant operators. The most effective way to make nuclear energy plants safer is to do what they did in Vermont with Act 160.

http://vtcitizen.org/act160.shtml

Nuclear electricity is the most expensive electricity in the world. Entitlements and tax-payer bailouts for the industry keep it afloat. The cost of managing the radioactive waste will cost taxpayers for the next 20,000 years. Would you buy a hamburger for $10,000? Nuclear electricity is the kind of electricity you use once and pay for every year until the cancer causing radiation disapates. How would you like to make house payments for the next 20,000 years. If so, just keep going along with your governments energy policies. Just do nothing.

Thanks to everyone for responding to my comments, which quite sincerely, I did not expect. Now, I want to bring your attention to the “new” development that the Japanese govt is raising the reactor issue to a Level 7. And unfortunately, that is not really indicative of the issue level as sites I am reading are saying this is 1000x the level of Chernobyl. So, the even higher radiation is coming and coming fast to America as it is part of our ‘jet stream’ from Asia.

Greenpeace released a report on March 25th which put Fukushima at level 7. It is the highest level as far as I know, maybe under the circumstances this one needs to go to 11. Or at least 8. Greenpeace put its own boots on the ground to take readings, which is what I believe forced the NRC here to state level 7 last week. Also, quite contradictory here, altho Japanese gov’t states level 7, they are also saying that the amount of radiation released is only 1/10th that of Chernobyl. The UN needs to hold them much more accountable for these discrepancies of information.

In 1945 the USA committed the single, most vicious act of state terrorism in human history by dropping A-bombs on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The gutless excuse, that this willful slaughter “was necessary to end the war,” was denied by General Dwight D.Dwight Eisenhower, Admiral William D. Leahy, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Herbert Hoover, and General Douglas MacArthur. The initial crime produced a tsunami of global nuclear testing that continued until 1998. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA Ironically, the “tsunami” which started to go around in 1945, is jet-streaming its way to America in 2012.

I’m a little confused about how radiation is showing up in milk. Don’t most large dairy operations feed grain and alfalfa? Wouldn’t those have been harvested last fall? Is there even grass in Vermont at this time of year?

Zeolites have the ability to detox heavy metals from our bodies naturally, including radiation heavy metals such as Iodine 131, Cesium 137, and Uranium. Take a look at this recent article regarding Zeolites past uses during nuclear disaster around the globe:

Jeff – The Institute of BioAcoustic Biology is attempting to set up an early warning system for radiation exposure using vocal profiling. Please check www.SoundHealthOptions.com. There is information about this innovative approach to health and many physician talking about it on YouTube – under Sound Health – The Miracles of non Medicine series is fascinating.

Thank you for the excellent reporting. I started a petition two weeks ago to call for increased oversight of our food and water. Please sign, this is urgenthttp://www.change.org/petitions/urgent-fukushima-radioactive-fallout-food-safety-petition

The emissions of radioactive material continue, so to run this article without an update showing the now accumulated totals is irresponsible and misleading in the amount that is now on our soils and in the air. While I 131 decays quickly, the rest of the isotopes do not and remain a concern for many years. Also talking about radiation effect on the skin is incomplete, as particles settled on plants ,water, and soil will end up being ingested, where harm is greater and exposure continues as long as the particles are internal. There is great efforts to downplay the risks from nuclear power, but the risks continue to increase with every emission. and the isotopes add up.

Jeff reads enenews. He knows what is really happening. Tokyo is panicking and America is taking the slow cowardly way of telling the public. Don’t worry. There will be genuine,accessible nuclear scientists on here by Monday to “talk” with Jeff.

Jeff would you like to weigh in on the fact that Tepco themselves have said that there has been continuous leaks in the air, water, and soil for the past over 400 days? What do your experts say about 400 days worth of continuous radioactive exposure to humans, most particularly children under the age of 4? Exposure with,per Tepco, no ETA, at all, for containment? This is combined with the radiation that Americans already deal with on a daily basis. Would you like to tell everyone why cesium is called the bone seeker? http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/cesium.html

I don’t believe anything these government liars lay claim to , they use false reporting to keep the Citizens in the dark, while protecting themselves and there loved ones. Let them drink the poisoned milk and water, let them croak.

Thank you all for your comments! Nikki, EPA monitors detected airborne radiation from Fukushima in March and April of 2011, and the agency increased monitoring to track this radiation as it fell out across North America. In late April the levels of radiation detected at these monitors dropped below reliably measurable levels. On May 3 EPA returned to routine monitoring. To my knowledge EPA monitors in North America have not picked up measurable levels of radiation from Fukushima since then.

Householdenergy-saving lamps,Start low-carbon lifestyle. Today , “low-carbonlife” is becoming a new lifestyle . In recent years,it was noticed that there are more and more people begin using energy saving lamp .Even as Some people say that, “it will be a trend,if Energy saving lamps instead of the traditional incandescent . We must attention the promotion of efficient energy-saving lamps.It is the best way to make sure that a high brightness , low power consumption , high luminous efficiency and stability advantages .

Wow, The EPA is now a political tool used to cover up the awful truth: that many US public water systems have been contaminated with radioactive waste. Not hysteria but reality. Buying the fluoride from the lowest bidder that is filed with radio active waste products. Incredulous? Yes, thought that way myself till the Austin Statesman took the challenge of a local radio personality and with city leaders and technicians discovered that at a city water facility the radiation was off the charts. Should have made the national news and taking heads? What happened to the true liberals that use to speak up? The money is good and the Who lyrics are proven true at last…